


Bugs

by TheUndeadBegonia (MagnoliaAnaglypta)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 21:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12661620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnoliaAnaglypta/pseuds/TheUndeadBegonia
Summary: In which Janeway finally realises she doesn't have any excuse left to delay re-instating Tom, and everybody except Janeway fails to ask the most obvious question of all, but nobody realises that…Set just before Unimatrix Zero:Originally published in RanDom Flight circa 2001





	Bugs

The chime on Captain Janeway's door sounded. She groaned and buried further under the bedclothes, wishing whoever it was would go away and fling themselves out of an airlock.  
They didn't, of course. After a few moments, the door opened, encouraged, no doubt, by a medical override code, and footsteps approached the bed. She pretended not to notice.  
"Good morning, captain." The obscenely cheerful sound of Tom Paris' voice rang like a gong in the few remaining cavities in her head which weren't stuffed with something that felt like rapidly hardening concrete.  
"Go 'way."  
"Now is that any way to talk to your friendly family doctor?" The now all-too familiar sound of a medical tricorder whirred above her head and tracked downwards for a few seconds. She pulled the blanket tighter around herself.  
"You might not believe this, but you are getting better. Another twenty four hours, and you'll start to feel it." He sounded encouraging, his voice changed from perky to sympathetic and reassuring. She made the effort - and it felt like a prodigious one - to turn around and look up at him, through eyes so swollen she could barely open them.  
"Why aren't you sick?" she sulked.  
"I never get sick." he still sounded unbearably cheerful. "Course, I do have enough accidents to compensate." He brandished a hypospray and applied it to her neck. "This will help with the symptoms a bit."  
"Can't you do anything more?"  
He shook his head and smiled at her a little wistfully. "I'm sorry, Captain. We don't even know why the biofilters missed it. The Doc might have been able to synthesize a remedy quicker than I can, but I'm no virologist, by the time I come up with a solution, your own immune system will have beaten it. I've boosted everyone's immune response, and it's looking pretty positive. I guess we're just a bit pampered these days; we expect five minute solutions to infections. If you'd been living in the twentieth century…."  
"…don't!"  
"Don't what?"  
"Don't tell me how lucky I am. I don't feel lucky." She tried to sit up and made it halfway, with his assistance. He flicked a couple of pillows behind her back so she could stay propped up. "Why did I have to be the one to get hit by this?"  
He shook his head. "You haven't been singled out. Nearly the whole crew's gone down with it."  
"The whole crew!"  
"The Vulcans don't seem too badly affected and the Bolians are the only ones who haven't shown any signs of infection. Too bad you sent Tuvok, Seven and the Doc off in the Delta flyer, since they're the only seniors who would probably still be standing."  
Paris left her side for a minute to go over to her bathroom and bring back a container of water. He sat down on the edge of her bed and handed her the water, frowning at her when she shook her head. "You're getting dehydrated. You need to drink more."  
"What for? I threw up my small intestine this morning, I can't process anything."  
She supposed it was reasonable that he couldn't resist a smile at the sight of his captain behaving like a four year old child who'd just been denied ice cream. But the very sight of him was annoying, his skin a healthy pink, and no sign of the reddened swelling that had transformed her nose into a cantaloupe. She took a cautious sip and, encouraged by the fact that she didn't immediately bring it back up, drank it all, a little at a time.  
"Chakotay?" she asked, between sips.  
"Says he knows what his ancestors felt like when the white man decided to exterminate them with smallpox. He's in a worse state than you are."  
"Who's on duty?" she asked.  
"Vorik's in Engineering, and Gulwat's keeping an eye on the bridge. The rest of the ship is like the Marie Celeste."  
Alarm surged through her, in as far as anything could actually surge in the state she was in.  
"I've got to get up, I can't…" she threw off the covers, swung her legs off the bed and attempted to stand. Immediately her head whirled and her legs collapsed under her. Paris caught her, lifted her up and dumped her firmly back onto the bed, pulling the pillows away so she had to lie down again.  
"Not so fast. I said twenty four hours and I meant it. Doctor's orders, and I mean orders."  
"You can't order me, 'Ensign'." It was a pathetic, last ditch attempt and it didn't faze him at all.  
"You made me the Doctor's assistant. In the absence of the CMO, I stand in his place, with his authority. You have been officially relieved of duty, and you will stay in bed."  
She gave up, glad he hadn't caved in, because that would have meant she'd have to make good on her intentions of getting up and taking the bridge and the sensible part of her knew she wasn't capable. "I've created a monster," she groaned, starting to shiver.  
He picked a quilt out of her closet, shook it out over the bed and with very gentle hands tucked it up to her neck and around her.  
She reached out to clutch at one of his arms. "You're senior officer now. The ship…"  
"…I'm the most junior ensign on board, as you just reminded me." He said it without rancour, but there was a hint of an expression on his face that she supposed she couldn't really blame him for. "Don't worry. Voyager's parked in a nice safe crater on the dark side of a moon, a couple of light years from where we were due to rendezvous with the Delta Flyer. We left a coded buoy to guide them to us. They should be back late tomorrow." He placed the palm of his hand over her forehead for a few moments. It felt cool and infinitely soothing. She wondered distantly if he ministered to everyone like this, then decided it would be better not to dwell on it. It took time away from her self pity, and she wanted to wallow.  
"Some people might actually feel like living by then," he continued with a hint of a grin. The hand was withdrawn, and she missed it instantly. Paris straightened up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got twenty three more house calls to make before lunchtime."  
She could swear she heard him whistling as the door closed behind him and she gave into the impulse to stick her tongue out at the empty air where he'd been a few seconds before.

 

* * *

 

 

The captain's quarters looked like a pity party for senior officers. Tuvok was the only one even in uniform and he looked unusually tired. Chakotay still shivered pathetically and held his dressing gown tightly about himself, its collar turned up high. Janeway looked slightly better, but not by much, and she was consoling herself with a massive mug of steaming hot coffee.  
The Doctor arrived just as Tuvok completed his mission report.  
"How is Tom, Doctor?" Janeway asked.  
"For someone who hasn't slept in 70 hours and collapsed at my feet as soon as I walked out of the Flyer? - he's fine, Captain. Sleeping it off. Another 24 hours and he'll be back on duty."  
"And the rest of the crew?"  
"All recovering well. Mr Paris may not be an expert on infectious pathogens but he was right, it would have taken longer to synthesize a treatment than for nature to do its job. The human body's a far better designed piece of equipment than most people give it credit for. He did all the right things."  
"And in the right order," Tuvok added. "He secured the ship, ensured the return of the away team, made provision for the care of 140 crew, researched and treated the infection, and was able to stay on his feet long enough to hand over command on my return. It was - an impressive performance."  
She sighed. "I suppose I shall have to give him his rank back now."  
"That would be a reasonable response," agreed Tuvok.  
"I'd say it was about time. I put in a recommendation four months ago," Chakotay commented, before his body was wracked with a massive sneeze.  
"You did?" asked the doctor. His surprised expression turned to one of insufferable smugness. "I did it six months ago."  
Tuvok did not give in to the temptation to join this game of one-upmanship with what Janeway knew would have been the winning entry. Whereas Chakotay and the Doctor had written brief notes on the subject, Tuvok had presented her with a flawlessly reasoned and meticulously detailed three page document some time ago. She knew she'd left it too long, and she knew they knew it. It didn't improve her mood one iota.  
Chakotay sneezed again, prodigiously, and shivered like an orphan puppy.  
She glared at him. "If you're playing for sympathy, forget it."  
He wisely chose not to respond.


End file.
